2 months ago

2 months ago

Sean May, the Most Outstanding Player on Roy Williams’ 2005 National Championship team, is returning to Chapel Hill in the role of assistant to the director of player development, the school announced Monday via press release. The former Second Team All-American, who played parts of four seasons in the NBA and several subsequent years overseas, has reportedly long had his eye on returning to the collegiate ranks to try his hand at coaching. After 10 years of professional hoops, there really couldn’t be a better situation for him to pursue his next endeavor, under the tutelage of the man who brought the best out of him as a player, on the same campus where he achieved his greatest success.

Sean May, a UNC legend, is coming back to his alma mater. (AP)

Recruited by Matt Doherty in the Class of 2002, May stunned most recruiting observers when he chose North Carolina over his native Indiana, a school where his father Scott May had starred for Bob Knight’s undefeated squad in 1976. The beefy center, part of a star-studded class that also included Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants, missed the better part of his freshman season in Chapel Hill after sustaining a serious foot injury that required surgery. A disappointing 17-15 season led to Doherty’s ouster, leaving the door open for then-Kansas head coach Williams to return to his alma mater. The class including May improved drastically under Williams, culminating in a dominant year as juniors, winning the school’s first National Championship since 1993 and restoring North Carolina’s reputation among the nation’s basketball elite. May was the centerpiece of that team, leading it in scoring and rebounding and capping his collegiate career off with a pristine performance in the title game, going for 26 points and 10 boards while missing only a single shot in a five-point victory over Illinois. Read the rest of this entry »

From the time-on-his-hands department, we move to the curious tweeting of former North Carolina, Florida Atlantic and SMU head coach, Matt Doherty. The former Tar Heel — both as a player (1980-84) and coach (2000-03) — took to the Tweether on Tuesday to defend one of his former players, Julius Peppers. Of course everyone reading this by now knows the context under which Peppers has become a hot topic in the college basketball community, but most folks have lost track of Doherty, a disastrous hire seemingly everywhere he’s been. No worries, though, as the erstwhile coach makes clear in this tweet, he is currently getting “paid for not working!” Funny, that’s what UNC fans were screaming at the top of their lungs around a decade ago. Still, the entire series of semi-abrasive and tweets makes you wonder if Doherty plans on ever working in this business again.

Is it every too early to start breaking down the juiciest match-ups in the non-conference schedule for the upcoming season? No argument here, as CNNSI.com’s Andy Glockner in mid-August has already put together his list of the 25 best pre-conference games (nearly all of these are in November and December). As it should be, the list is very top-heavy, with annual favorites Kentucky, Indiana, Louisville and North Carolina representing seven of the 10 spots in the top five games. It’s hard to quibble with lists like these because so much of it comes down to a matter of taste, but for our money, the best game on the agenda is the Champions Classic match-up between Kentucky and Duke. Sure, Louisville and UK are the bitterest of rivals and the storylines between Calipari and Pitino are too many to count. But we just played that game a few months ago in New Orleans, and we have it at least one other time per season. Instead, give us the Wildcats and Blue Devils, a pair of teams that somehow and shockingly have not played each other in ELEVEN WHOLE YEARS (Duke won in the 2001 Jason Williams overtime classic at the Jimmy V — check the Youtube clips here). How is this possible? How can Kentucky and Duke not see each other at least once every few seasons? All in all, though, if Glockner’s list doesn’t get your juices pumping, we can’t help you.

One of Glockner’s juiciest 25 games is the annual Crosstown Shootout game between Cincinnati and Xavier, and regardless of the players on the floor, he’s 100% correct in that this game is always worth a viewing. Xavier, the big winner in last year’s brawl game, lost quite a bit of its production to graduation but was expected to bring back fourth-leading scorer (9.8 PPG) and TSN A-10 Freshman of the Year, Dez Wells. No longer. The school expelled Wells yesterday for a serious violation of Xavier’s student code of conduct.” XU would not provide additional details about the violations, but it’s safe to assume that his transgression fell on the side of worse than pushing a UC player causing an embarrassing fracas. The question we now have is: Who doesn’t need a scoring and rebounding big guard who will have three years of eligibility remaining after a one-year transfer layoffs. We’re betting that the over/under on calls to Wells by this morning is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 schools.

With a new commissioner and a new lead negotiator in tow, the Big East is battening down all the hatches before its television negotiation window opens up in a bit over a week from now. The latest news that shows the league is putting its absolute best foot forward for its TV masters of the universe is that the conference is very close to securing a 10-year extension to its existing deal that will keep the Big East Tournament at the Mecca, Madison Square Garden, through 2026. This is very important to the future of the league for a number of reasons, but perhaps the weightiest is that it will serve to keep the encroaching ACC (with new members Pittsburgh and Syracuse) out of Manhattan for a good while. Furthermore, even though nearly everyone agrees that football drives the financial bus of the power conferences, the Big East’s Mike Aresco and the ACC’s John Swofford seem to recognize the value in their specific basketball products. The Big East Tournament on Seventh Avenue between 31st and 33d Streets is a big part of that value, so it’s great to see that Aresco and his team clearly understand that.

Finally, we have no idea what to make of this news, but it’s bizarre and worth mentioning as we close things out nonetheless. Kellogg’s announced that it will release a series of Pop Tarts the company calls “printed fun” with five different flavors coinciding with the following schools: Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, and North Carolina. As this responding article at Hoopsworld shows, Twitter may have had more fun with this meme than Doherty enjoyed all by lonesome on Tuesday. Somewhere in Lubbock, Texas, Billy Gillispie reportedly kicked over a case of delicious Pop Tart goodness with the release of this news. Alas.

At 12-0 and fresh off a Las Vegas Classic sweep of St. Mary’s and West Virginia, there’s not a whole lot left for Baylor to prove. The 6th-ranked Bears seem to have it all: dominant bigs, freakish athleticism, terrific dunkers and, most importantly, steady guard play. Junior college All-American Pierre Jackson, Boston College transfer Brady Heslip and junior A.J. Walton have formed a strong trio in the backcourt, and they’re helping Perry Jones and the crew lead the way in the paint. Cal transfer Gary Franklin has also impressed since gaining eligibility, as he’s turned the ball over just once in four games. That’s a striking contrast from last season, when Scott Drew wasted a boatload of NBA talent due to poor guard play and other issues. Baylor still has some work to do in the rebounding department, and it also turns the ball over a bit too much at times. But those are kinks Drew will work out during the course of the season, and they shouldn’t hold Baylor back against Mississippi State. In many ways, the Bulldogs are a mirror image of Baylor. They have a dangerous frontcourt duo in Arnett Moultrie and Renardo Sidney, but Rick Stansbury’s guards have stepped up to help the Bulldogs to a 12-1 start. Dee Bost may be this team’s most important player as both a scorer and leader of the offense, and it’s going to be up to him to make smart decisions on a semi-neutral floor in Dallas tonight. Let’s not be silly here, though. This game will be won in the paint, and it all depends on which stars show up to play. Jones had a lot of questions to answer this season after a somewhat disappointing freshman season, but he has looked like a new man so far in 2011-12. That’s also an accurate description for Moultrie, who has embraced his role as the enforcer in Starkville after two modest seasons at UTEP. In his first year of eligibility, Moultrie has already recorded seven double-doubles, and he’s both getting to the line (6.0 attempts per game) and converting his free throws (88.3 percent). Against Jones, Quincy Miller, Quincy Acy and the other forwards with giant wingspans on the Baylor roster, Moultrie has a chance to prove his worth on national television.

The key individual matchup is… Dee Bost vs. A.J. Walton/Pierre Jackson/Gary Franklin. Jackson has not started a game this year, and Franklin just became eligible four games ago, but they’re both stealing time away from starter A.J. Walton at the point. It’s not a bad problem for Drew to have, since all three are playing reasonably well. It’s no secret who runs the show for Mississippi State, though. Dee Bost will likely attempt the most shots for the Bulldogs tonight, he’ll lead the team in assists and he will also be the most disruptive defensive presence on the floor. After all, he’s in the top-10 all-time in steals at Mississippi State, which means Walton, Jackson and Franklin better take care of the basketball. The elite forwards in this game cannot get to work unless the point guards play well. For Bost, that means taking good shots. When MSU plays well, it’s usually because Bost finds a groove and plays within the offense. But when Bost struggles– say, like his 2-9 effort in a loss to Akron or a 4-16 performance in a near-collapse at Detroit– this team is in trouble. It will be interesting to see who Drew leans on at his point guard spot. Franklin and Jackson actually played more minutes than Walton in the team’s overtime win against West Virginia, and Jackson starred in that game with 23 points and a tying three-point in the final minute.

The Big East announced in a teleconference they would be adding five new schools to the fold. Three of those schools, Houston, Central Florida, and Southern Methodist, will play all of their sports in the conference starting in 2013. Of course it is far too early to tell what sort of impact these teams will have in their new conference, but that won’t stop us from pontificating. Next up is Southern Methodist.

The Past

The addition of Southern Methodist is the perfect evidence that the decision to add new teams was based on football implications. While the Mustangs’ football team has made improvements under June Jones and is actually a threat to make a bowl game consistently, the basketball program is a barren wasteland filled with mediocrity and little historical success. When compared to tradition-rich basketball programs like Syracuse and Pittsburgh, the Mustangs don’t even really deserve to be mentioned in the same breath.

How Can You Not Love That Fabulous Hair?

SMU has never had a winning record in Conference USA and they haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since they won the Southwest Conference in 1993. If you are looking for notable NBA alumni, you will have to look pretty hard until you stumble across Quinton Ross, or even better, Jon Koncak and his perfectly coiffed hair. They brought Matt Doherty in to coach in 2006 and opened a brand-new $13 million basketball facility in 2007, but the added facilities and supposed recruiting prowess have yet to make a difference.

The Present

Last season was the team’s best finish in Conference USA, and they only finished 8-8 and were bounced in the first round of the conference tournament by Rice. Unfortunately, they will be lucky if they get back to that point again this season. Currently they sit at 5-3 and their best win is six-point overtime win against Arkansas-Little Rock. They have shown little semblance of solid defensive play at any point, and their offense hasn’t been much better.

Fayetteville Observer: It’s December, which means it’s time for the dreaded “guarantee” games. But the games serve a purpose. They make money for both teams; they give players more time to study for finals, which are currently going on at several ACC schools; and they teach young players how to win (or at least give them some valuable confidence). But don’t despair! Tickets to these games are much easier to buy and the conference season is just around the corner.

Charleston Post and Courier: Clemson needs someone to be “the man” this season. Andre Young has been great, but he generally sticks to jump shots and facilitating the offense. Brad Brownell is looking for a guy who can create his own shot when things aren’t going the right way. Personally, I’m not sure there’s a player with that kind of attitude on the Tiger team this season. The closest player to a go-to guy–based on skill set–is Milton Jennings, but Brownell thinks Jennings lacks the “confidence” to take over right now.

Winston-Salem Journal and Wilmington Star News: Wake Forest just got a little bit deeper. The Demon Deacons got Ty Walker back after a 10-game suspension for violating the team’s conduct policy this summer landed the seven-footer on the bench to start this season. Just be careful not to overestimate Walker’s impact. Mostly, he provides another tall body who can help pick up some of the minutes when Carson Derosiers is on the bench.

BC Interruption: A quick look at the ACC and just how “down” the conference is this year. Basically, the conference only has four teams in the top 50 of Ken Pomeroy’s rankings (luckily all four are in the top 30) compared to six the last four years (and nine in 2006-07!). The other issue is that three teams are outside of the top-100 with Boston College bringing up the rear. That means that barring a major shake-up in conference play, the ACC looks like a four-bid league (thank goodness for the Pac-12).

Republican-American: Maryland fans rejoice (or pine about how much better the team would be with him)! Jordan Williams has signed a two-year deal with the New Jersey Nets for a little under $500,000. The NBA lockout ended just in time for Williams, who was headed to Poland to play professionally.

EXTRA: I’m late on this, but you have to watch this video starring former North Carolina coach Matt Doherty.

Earlier today the match-ups for the 2011 NIT Season Tip-Off were announced. Unlike many preseason tournaments where the team that will advance is already pre-determined in this tournament you actually have to win to advance, which apparently is a novel concept for preseason tournaments. Like most preseason tournaments it features early-round games at a regional host site with a team from each region advancing to a different destination (in this case Madison Square Garden) for the semifinals and finals.

Scoop and the Orange hope to be back at Madison Square Garden

The host teams for the regional sites (November 14-16) will be Syracuse, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, and Stanford. Here are the match-ups for each site for the first round (full bracket here).

Syracuse versus Manhattan and Albany versus Brown

Virginia Tech versus Monmouth and George Mason versus Florida International

Stanford versus Fresno State and Colorado State versus Southern Methodist

The winners of the first round games in each region will play against each other with the team and the winner of that game will advance to play in Madison Square Garden for the semifinals and finals (and consolation game for the losers of the semifinals) on November 23 and 25. The losers of the first round games in each region will meet on campus sites on November 21 and 22.

Duke will be undergoing a significant transformation after losing Kyrie Irving, Nolan Smith, and Kyle Singler and to help get the team ready they are heading to China and Duabi in August. Although we wouldn’t read too much into results for the Blue Devils playing on the other side of the planet it will be interesting to see how they integrate all the new pieces (particularly Austin Rivers and Quinn Cook with returning guards Tyler Thornton, Seth Curry, and Andre Dawkins). The Blue Devils are definitely a step below Kentucky and UNC at this point in the season, but they have enough talent to be a legitimate top 5 team later in the year. Of course, we are also looking forward to fans complaining when ESPN decides to run a month-long special feature on Duke abroad and broadcasts all of their games live.

Team USA had its biggest victory of the FIBA U-19 yesterday when it knocked off Lithuania, 107-105 in overtime, to avenge a pre-tournament loss to the Lithuanians. Jonas Valanciunas, the 5th overall pick in this year’s NBA Draft, had a huge game with 30 points and 15 rebounds, but was upstaged by Jeremy Lamb‘s 35 points including the game-winner with 2 seconds left in overtime and overcome a series of late-game miscues by several other college players on the US team. The US has one more game in the second round today against Croatia before single-elimination play starts on Friday.

Matt Doherty picked up a potential starter yesterday when Kansas State transfer Nick Russell announced that he would be heading to Southern Methodist. Russell, who was the #4 prospect in the state of Texas coming out of high school, struggled to find his niche in the Wildcats’ offense and averaged just 4.2 PPG and 1.9 RPG despite starting at times for Kansas State. The change in scenery (and the big step down in level of competition) might be enough to help Russell regain his old form and help Doherty get the Mustangs out of the middle of the Conference USA standings.

Indiana transfer Bobby Capobiano announced that he was transferring to Valparaiso yesterday. Capobiano, who averaged 2.3 PPG and 2.6 RPG as a freshman before seeing his playing time drop last season, cited the success of recent transfers Brandon Wood and Cory Johnson as a major factor in his decision. If new coach Bryce Drew can find a way to integrate Capobianco into the Valparaiso offense after Capobianco’s mandatory one-year hiatus, he could be a major factor inside for them to help develop a low-post game that they have lacked for years.

TCU will be heading to the Big East for the 2012-13 season, but it is already bringing in assistants with some pretty substantial credentials as it added Rob Evans to its staff yesterday as an assistant coach. Evans, who has been coaching in college for 42 years including time as a head coach at Mississippi and Arizona State making the NCAA Tournament at both places. Most recently Evans served as an assistant coach at Arkansas for the past four years. We highly encourage you to visit the link to take a look at his career as both a player and a coach because it is fascinating stuff (being knocked out of the NCAA Tournament in consecutive years to guys named Elvin Hayes and Lew Alcindor is just some of it).

Over the weekend, Duke announced that recently fired Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel had been selected to be its newest assistant coach. The announcement itself was noteworthy as Capel, who just two years ago was considered one of the hottest names in coaching, had fallen to the point where he was forced to take an assistant coaching position. The question of how Capel had fallen so quickly could be answered in several ways (most notably the departure of Blake Griffin and the disappointing performances of McDonald’s All-Americans Willie Warren and Tiny Gallon), but remains mysterious.

Capel will be returning to Duke (Credit: Bryan Terry/NewsOk.com)

Capel’s return to Durham also raises the more intriguing question of who is next in line to succeed Mike Krzyzewski when he eventually decides to retire, a possibility that was made more clear recently with the retirement of Gary Williams, one of his chief rivals in the ACC at nearly the same age as Krzyzewski. The first question is whether the Duke administration will want to pursue an internal candidate or would look at outsiders. We imagine that Krzyzewski would make a strong push to hire an internal candidate or at least someone with strong ties to the program, but the performance of most of the disciples from his coaching tree has been underwhelming to put it lightly. There have been a number of prominent head coaches (Mike Brey, Tommy Amaker, Johnny Dawkins, Quin Synder, and Capel) who have coached under Krzyzewski during his time at Duke as well as two others serving as associates alongside Capel (Steve Wojciehowski and Chris Collins).

We’re going to make this one fairly quick as it’s a travel day here at the RTC west coast compound. Gotta get to Maui…

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

Talib Zanna. The Pitt freshman is making the most of his opportunity to start, going for 14/12 in the first double-double of his young career. He’s now averaging 10/9 in four games and proves once again that Jamie Dixon really knows how to find recruiting diamonds in the rough. This guy wasn’t even a top 150 player on Rivals (although he was listed as the #10 center on Scout).

Coming Out Party of Harrison Barnes. In a mere half of action, Barnes showed everyone watching why he is considered the top amateur talent in the world right now. He hit all four of his trey attempts en route to a 19/7 first half that allowed UNC for at least a game to look like the dominant force they usually are under Roy Williams. If the Heels destroy Minnesota as easily as they did “Hoftra,” then we may want to re-assess our preseason ranking of them.

Dogus Balbay & Tristan Thompson. Balbay’s late game defense on Illinois’ Demetri McCamey allowed his Longhorns to seize control of the semifinal game of the CvC, while Thompson did just about everything else — 20/7/4 assts/3 stls/5 blks for the budding superstar. It’s never too early for UT to tank, but so far this team seems to like playing together a lot more than last year’s team did.

Georgetown Guards. The Hoya trio of Austin Freeman, Chris Wright and Jason Clark scored 54 points and dropped 17 assists in an easy win over Coastal Carolina at the Charleston Classic. This is all fine and well until the guards go cold from outside — they hit 14 threes tonight, but we seriously doubt that’ll be the norm.

…and Misses.

K-State Looking Ahead. Here’s how you know that you’re a top-shelf program. You don’t look past teams like Presbyterian because you’re playing Gonzaga and Duke next. If you feel that you’re on par with those programs, there’s no reason to look ahead. KSU was only up 69-65 against the Blue Hose with 2:30 remaining. That level of effort won’t work in the CBE Classic on Monday/Tuesday.

Madison Square Garden. It’s difficult for us to believe that MSG is the self-described Mecca of College Basketball when New Yorkers don’t fill the seats for four quality teams such as Texas, Pitt, Illinois and Maryland. We’ve been there a few times ourselves and even when local favorites Syracuse and UConn were playing, there were still seats available. Give us a college arena with people packed in like sardines to the rafters any day.

Missouri’s Late Start. As the last team in the country to play its season opener, Mizzou looked terrible. How bad was it against Western Illinois? For the first time in 59 years, the Tigers won a game without a single double-figure scorer. Ugh.

Tweet of the Night. This one didn’t have to do with any of tonight’s games, but it’s an 8.8 on the unintentional comedy scale. Have at it, UNC fans…

RTC Live.We were back at the 2kSports Coaches vs. Cancer for the second year in a row, and we got to see two pretty good games.

#5 Pittsburgh 79, Maryland 70. Maryland hung tough with a very good Pitt team on Thursday night. The Panthers’ focus coming in was slowing down Maryland’s Jordan Williams, and they did a pretty good job of it for the first 35 minutes of the game. With Brad Wanamaker and Ashton Gibbs both playing subpar basketball, Talib Zanna stepped up to the tune of 14 points and 12 boards. In a closely contested first half, Jordan Williams picked up two fouls early on. After he would come out of the game, Pitt hit the Terps with 22-8 run. And while Maryland’s back court — Cliff Tucker, Terrell Stoglin, Adrian Bowie — led the charge back, Pitt threw a counter-punch with Nasir Robinson’s three point play. Maryland never threatened again.

Texas 90, #16 Illinois 84 (OT). Texas got a dominating performance out of Tristan Thompson. The talented big fella went for 20 points, seven boards and four assists. Jordan Hamilton, the Longhorns’ best player, went for 21 points. After watching Illinois suffer a disappointing, 90-84 overtime loss to Texas in the nightcap of the Coaches vs. Cancer semifinals at Madison Square Garden, I can’t help but ask those same questions of Illinois. The Illini are a talented team. There is no questioning that. Demetri McCamey is a scoring guard that became the nation’s leader in assists last season. Brandon Paul and DJ Richardson, known last year as a promising but inconsistent freshmen duo, are back for their sophomore seasons as McCamey’s sidekicks. Mike Tisdale, Mike Davis, and Meyers Leonard provide a long and versatile front court, while Bill Cole and Jereme Richmond are combo-forwards that give Bruce Weber the option of playing really big or really small. On paper, this is a team that is good enough to contend for the Final Four. But projected success on paper is far from a sure thing once the teams take the court.

This is leftover from the weekend detritus, but Matt Dohertymade an ass of himself at SMU’s game versus Memphis on Saturday (a 13-pt loss to the Tigers) when he engaged in name-calling with some fans behind the Mustang bench. Look, it was funny when he called out the Duke cheerleaders to his own team in the huddle, but woofing it up with fans over the quality of their school and so on is just pathetic.

It’s been that kind of a year at UCLA. Reeves Nelson needed to undergo eye surgery on his retina, which was slightly torn during an injury he suffered last week at Washington State where he landed face-first after a dunk. His timetable for return is uncertain, but his doctor said that he could be back in action as soon as this coming weekend.

Northern State’s Don Meyerannounced his retirement effective at the end of this season. He has won 922 games over the course of a 37-year head coaching career in both the NAIA and NCAA Division II. His NSU teams twice made the D2 regional finals, and his NAIA teams at Lipscomb twice made the national semifinals before bowing out.